Mohegan tribe returns federal funds

The Mohegans are returning nearly $760,000 in federal funds, asking that it be redistributed to other tribes in the South and East.

Erica Jacobson

The Mohegans are returning nearly $760,000 in federal funds, asking that it be redistributed to other tribes in the South and East.

In a statement Wednesday, Mohegan Tribal Council Chairman Bruce “Two Dogs” Bozsum said the money should go to tribes that “have demonstrated the greatest need and suffer from current or previous year shortfalls in funding” in the United East and Southern Tribes Inc.

He also said the recipient tribes should not receive more than 10 percent of their revenue from gaming or have substantial gaming projects under development.
Michael Cook, executive director for the Nashville-based tribal organization, said this isn’t the first time the Mohegans have sent funds back to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service to help other tribes.

Strong organization

“It shows the strength of our organization and how we try to take care of each other,” Cook said. “There’s no question our member tribes are at each end of the spectrum. We have very successful enterprising tribes, and we have other tribes who just do not have access to the resources.”

Cook said Bozsum’s request of where the money should go is not always fulfilled by the government.

“It’s a very difficult process when money comes back into the system from a federal level,” he said. “The request has not always been honored by the federal agencies.”

The tribe will return $105,680 received from the BIA as part of an act seeking to build American Indian-run governments and school systems as well as to train educational professionals and run a youth internship program.

The Mohegans also asked that an additional $518,440 not yet disbursed be redistributed by the BIA to other groups in the 25-tribe organization. It was unclear what that money is earmarked for and calls to the agency’s headquarters in Washington were not returned Wednesday.

The remaining $135,000 will go back to the Indian Health Service, a government agency that granted the Mohegans about $1.8 million last year.

Martha Ketcher, a Nashville-based deputy director with the service, said both of Connecticut’s tribes receive money from the agency, but only the Mohegans opted to return funds.

“They have been a champion of our health initiatives for a number of years,” she said. “What Mohegan has done has been greatly appreciated by all of our tribes.”

Bruce MacDonald, a spokesman for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, said that tribe puts money from the service to work beyond its own membership.

“The bulk of the money received from Washington is for health-related programs, the largest of which serves all Native Americans from federally recognized tribes who live in the region, not just those from the two tribes with ancestral lands here, the Mohegan and Pequot tribes,” he said. “We are providing vitally needed health services to people who, in some cases, desperately need them. Because of that, we have no plans to make any changes.”